Spinach Gratin with Hard Boiled Eggs

If you want, you can also sauté some chopped onion, and/or a persillade of minced garlic and parsley to mix in with the cooked spinach and béchamel. Either way. Without these aromatics, a cleaner flavor of the spinach comes through.

*To hard boil eggs, place eggs in a 2-quart saucepan and cover with at least an inch of cold water. Bring the water to a boil, remove the pan from heat, and cover. Let sit for 10-12 minutes, covered. Then run under cold water to keep from overcooking. Crack the shells while the eggs are still under water and let sit for a while to cool before peeling.

**To make your own bread crumbs, take a few slices of day old bread and toast either in a toaster or in the oven until browned, then pulse in a food processor or blender until you have crumbs. Stir in a little herbes de Provence or Italian seasoning and a little salt to taste.

Method

1 If working with fresh spinach, blanche the spinach in boiling water for 1 minute, drain and run cool water over it to cool it down. Press as much water as you can out of the spinach. (A good way to do this is to put the drained spinach in the center of a large, clean tea towel, wrap it with the towel, and wring the moisture out by wringing the towel.) Chop the spinach. Place in a large bowl. Season to taste with salt and set aside while you make the béchamel.

2 Heat milk in a medium saucepan until steamy, set aside. In a separate saucepan, melt 2 tablespoons of butter on medium heat. Sprinkle in the flour, whisking the mixture until smooth, about a minute or two. Remove from heat. Slowly pour in the hot milk, whisking the whole time so that the mixture is not lumpy. Continue to whisk until there are no lumps. Return the pan to heat and let heat to a simmer, continuing to whisk to keep the mixture from sticking to the bottom of the pan. The béchamel sauce will thicken as it cooks. Sprinkle in the ground nutmeg and black pepper.

3 Stir the thickened béchamel sauce into the bowl of spinach.

4 Grease the inside of a 2-quart gratin pan or casserole all around with a little butter. Pour the spinach béchamel mixture into a gratin pan, and even out the surface. Sprinkle the surface with the grated Gruyere cheese. Slice the hard boiled eggs in half, and arrange, cut side up, on the surface of the spinach mixture. Press into the spinach mixture so that the cut side of the eggs are level with the spinach. Sprinkle with 3 to 4 tablespoons of seasoned bread crumbs. Drizzle the top with a tablespoon or so of olive oil. At this point you can make the gratin a day ahead and chill until ready to cook to serve.

5 Bake, uncovered, in a 375°F oven for 25-30 minutes, until nicely browned.

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Comments

Lana

My mother used to make what we simply called Spinach Casserole. It was a family favorite and I just loved it. The amazing thing about this was that I didn’t care for spinach any other way (When I was older I discovered spinach dip and espinaca). Unfortunately, by the time I thought to ask her for her recipe, she didn’t remember it (she is 95). I went looking and found this recipe and it sounded similar. But when I made it, it just wasn’t right. I experimented a couple of times and still couldn’t get it. Then I realized that back in those days, we always ate canned spinach. I tried it with canned spinach, Betty Crocker’s white sauce recipe, and cracker crumbs and there it was! Marvelous. To me, fresh or canned spinach tastes fishy, and when I took it to a pot luck with frozen, one of the ladies said, “Oh, you put tuna in it. I never had it that way.” So I’m not the only one. I never added the nutmeg any time, since I don’t care for it.

@ Keith If you make coddled eggs in big ramekins you could avoid gluten. Cook some spinach and half fill a ramekin or 2. Break an uncooked egg into a small depression made in the spinach cover with some pouring cream and then grated cheese and season with salt and pepper. I cook for between 15 -18 mins in the oven at about 180. It’s easy to overcook the egg so it’s a case pf seeing how it works in your oven.

Made this tonight for guests. The amount of ground nutmeg (not fresh) was too much for our tastes – my fault, not the recipe’s. Otherwise, the dish came together beautifully. I will try again but will omit or greatly lessen the nutmeg.

Thank you for this recipe. I stumbled across it while looking for frittata recipes. This was more up my alley for the ingredients I had on hand. Then I discovered the zucchini/spinach/bacon gratin link at the bottom and so I combined the two recipes. It’s in the oven baking now and I’m so excited to try them. I ended up using frozen turnip greens, beet greens, spinach and zucchini. I have an overabundance of greens from the garden each year and love having a good recipe to use them up in. I’ll be posting an article of my own later on as I don’t want to forget this!

I stumbled upon this site when I was searching hard boiled eggs and spinach only because I’ve been making spinach with hard boiled eggs, salt, pepper and butter forever…..cause that is the way my Polish Mother and Grandmother made it. I don’t know why they did it that way and don’t think it is Polish in origin but just thought I would make the search.

I am going on a low carb diet, so I tried out this recipe yesterday and it was a big hit both with me and my boyfriend! I really liked the taste of the breadcrumbs on top and it looked beautiful when it came out! I think when I make it again, I may add store-bought fried onions on top too. Yum!

This is close to my Easter brunch “Do-Ahead Eggs Benedict Casserole!” Just-barely poached eggs are nestled in rows on top of the spinach, and the sauce is poured over the top. You may decorate with buttered Panko crumbs. Refrigerate overnight and bake for around 25-minutes in a 350-degree oven. The eggs stay creamy inside (“Who Knew???”) Serve with toasted English muffins and sliced ham. I make extra sauce, and eliminate the nutmeg (personal taste).

My (French) husband loves it, and after before-tasting grumbling about having spinach, my three children ate it without comment, my three-year old even had seconds! So yes, definitely a child pleaser. And adults as well.I have made it the second time today in one week – I guess that is really comment enough…

I make something very similar that uses mashed potatoes rather than bechamel, and the eggs are baked in indentations in the spinach/potato bed. The whole thing is covered with gruyere and chopped bacon. Gosh, I hadn’t thought of this in some time. Time to make it again, thanks!

Made this tonight for our “meatless Monday” dinner. There is only 3 of us so I cut the recipe by roughly 1/3 but outside of that, prepared the recipe as is. It was fantastic and served with some crusty bread, was more than enough as a main dish. Thanks again!

Very belated birthday wishes for your dad. I wanted to share an easy/fast way to peel your eggs. After I drain off the cooking water, I give the eggs a good shake in the pan to crack them. Then I peel them under cold running water that is positioned over the pan to cool down the other eggs. Easy peasy.

Being French and having always loved spinach, I make this quite often. My mom (and my cookbooks) never mixed the bechamel sauce with the spinach, we pour it over the spinach and the eggs before putting the whole thing in the oven. In some families who do not fear anything (like my in-laws), they use creamed spinach, i.e. spinach mixed with cream, then the hard-boiled eggs, then the bechamel or even sauce Mornay, i.e. bechamel with egg yolks and more cream, on top.One tip: always add nutmeg to the spinach, it really makes a difference in all cases (and of course nutmeg to the bechamel).

I studied abroad in northern France and my host-mother regularly made a dish a lot like this one. I loved it and have thought of it often and fondly over the past 10 years or so but never found a recipe that looked right to me. i can’t wait to try this!

I am so excited to find someone else that uses eggs in their spinach. That’s the only way I knew to serve it. My husband hates spinach so it just leaves it all for me. His loss!!! I have tried all the other suggestions and they are all marvelous. I don’t always have time to prep fresh spinach, so I just revert back to good ol’ Popeye. I have one last suggestion for all of you great cooks out there. Please try before you reply. I made this for my side dish when we grilled steaks. I love to saute mushrooms in butter for steak night. One day I doubled the amount of mushrooms for another meal the next day. My spinach was at the ready stage to finish up, so I dropped the butter in, cracked an egg in the center, scrambeled it a little, then stirred it into the spinach to finish cooking. (like you would for egg drop soup). I picked up the bowl of buttered sauteed mushrooms and dropped a few in. First taste, I was hooked. I served it for my quilt club one day, not knowing if anybody liked spinach or not. Well, I didn’t make enough. One lady said she didn’t really care for cooked spinach, (she liked it raw, in salads) but she loved this dish.It is pretty darn good. I hope ya’ll like it.

This sounds much like a dish I leaned from my aunt, who was a farm wife. She would cook onions and ham, add spinach (canned) and when all was hot stir in some beaten eggs. Not the prettiest dish, but very tasty. Substituting the mushrooms for the ham sounds great.

This recipe looks pretty easy to adapt to a gluten-free version. I’ll try it with chard instead of spinach, because I often receive chard in my weekly CSA farm box and rarely receive spinach, and I prefer the taste of chard to spinach anyway (I think it’s the oxalate content of spinach that doesn’t agree with me).

And I just bought a Staub oval enameled cast iron dish just like yours (but in a less cheery color) when it was on sale at SLT recently, so this recipe is a great reason to use my new casserole. Love the magnetic matching wooden trivet that comes with it.

I wonder if you could sort of poach the eggs into the spinach as it cooked? I love the idea of using eggs like this either hardboiled, or added directly into the casserole before cooking. Thanks.

I think for a casserole, it might be messy to serve, and it wouldn’t hold up as well as leftovers. But it would taste great. So you could use the same concept, but just make individual large ramekins. ~Elise

Sometimes I crack eggs into nests of creamed spinach and bake it in the oven, but I never thought to use hard boiled eggs… so pretty! I also never thought to sprinkle cheese and bread crumbs over top! That’s icing on the cake! Thanks, again, Elise, for yet another fabulous idea!!!

This looks delicious. BUT, if you post that recipe for the Provencal fish soup, you will have my undying love. I ate that all the time while living in Provence (in Nice) nearly 15 years ago, and I haven’t had it since. I can still taste it. At the time I didn’t have the good sense to get the recipe, and I’d almost forgotten about it. So please, please post it…

Without the last 4 ingredients, this is my recipe for creamed spinach. I use baby spinach, wilt it, and squeeze out the juice before adding it to the bechamel. I also use leftovers of the same creamed spinach for eggs Florentine, using poached eggs. I had never thought of using hard-boiled eggs though. I am definitely going to try this. It looks yummy. I can’t wait for the fish soup recipe.